Pa. charter school reforms are long overdue

After 16 years without significant change, reforms to the Pennsylvania’s charter school laws must be made immediately. Current Senate Bill 1085 increases the problems by extending charter schools to higher education institutions without providing any safeguards for the local taxpayers and students in terms of financial and academic accountability.

The net cost for school districts for students attending charter schools increased from $434 million in 2006-07 to $1.15 billion in 2011-12. According to the auditor general’s special report in 2012, education funding reform would save taxpayers a million dollars a day. The flawed funding formula had Pennsylvania spending over $3,000 more per student compared to the national average, making it the highest spender of the five states with the highest charter enrollment.

The “pension double” dip costs taxpayers over $50 million a year and provides charters with 150 percent of pension costs. Gov. Corbett has supported changing this grievous error in his current budget remarks. An Allentown School District board member has described the funding process as “generous to the charters and fiscally punitive to the public schools,” while a Centennial School District business manager stated it was “a funding formula from the twilight zone.”

In 2009-10, Centennial School District (with 10 schools) received $88,703,654 in state payments, while the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter received $95,331,379. PA Cyber Charter had a savings account of $13 million and spent $2 million on advertising. A former official of the school has been charged by federal authorities for allegedly taking $1 million and diverting another $8 million into related accounts. Eight Philadelphia charter school officials have pled guilty to federal fraud charges.

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More importantly, however, is the denial of a “thorough and efficient” education to many charter school students. There are excellent charter schools in the commonwealth, such as Phoenixville’s Renaissance Academy which was named a top high school in the country by Newsweek in 2013 as were Perkiomen Valley and Upper Perkiomen High Schools. Cyber charter schools are lagging far behind in academic achievement with none of them making AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) a few years ago.

The Pennsylvania pupil performance profiles in 2012-13 showed the traditional public scores scoring at 77.1 percent, brick-and-mortar charter schools scoring at 66.4 percent and cyber charter schools at 46.8 percent. Seventy percent is considered the “success” rate. A National Educational Policy Center Study (January 2012) found that only 27.4 percent of virtual schools run by for-profit companies made AYP, while 51.4 percent of brick-and-mortar charter schools managed by for-profit organizations or nonprofit organizations made AYP.

CREDO, the Center for Research on Educational Outcomes at Stanford University, recently released a report that showed the abysmal academic accomplishments of Pennsylvania’s charter schools. The study, involving 26 states and DC, showed that nationwide charter students were faring better overall than four years ago. Pennsylvania charters did poor then, leading the research manager to state that, “What we can say right now is whatever they’re doing in Pennsylvania is definitely not working and should not be replicated.”

The data on charter school impacts showed Pennsylvania had a negative 29 days of learning in reading and a negative 50 days of learning in math. Most states showed positive gains and only Nevada scored lower than Pennsylvania. The highest score was Rhode Island with a gain of 86 days in reading and 108 days in math. There is a tremendous challenge ahead for all of Pennsylvania’s schools to maximize their resources and provide an excellent education for all of their students. Charter school reform is essential to help in this task.

George Bonekemper of Pennsburg worked for 33 years in public education in positions ranging from classroom teacher to superintendent and spent 12 years in higher education as a coordinator of professional development schools. He also served 12 years on a local school board.